


and the world was inside of me

by annperkinsface



Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy, Voyná i mir | War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-05-26 08:10:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14996555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annperkinsface/pseuds/annperkinsface
Summary: "Count Bezukhov to see you, Countess.”Natasha startled. She glanced over her shoulder and there he stood, watching her carefully. His hat in his hands. Smile a little shy.





	and the world was inside of me

The days passed half in dream but not the kind that she would crawl into bed alongside Sonya in the gray twilight hours and whisper to her smilingly of, their hands tangled and faces shining; no, it held all of their haziness and none of their splendor. You have the gift of happiness, Andrei said once, but now Natasha’s only gift was sitting for hours and staring at nothing, heedless of footsteps or a thin shawl being draped over her shoulders, nor of the hands that lingered, smoothing it over them tenderly. Small, soft, hands that should be as familiar to Natasha as her own, the same hands she had once grasped so tightly in the dark, but Natasha hadn't stirred, not even at the press of lips to her hair. She sat in a chair by the window and stared out of it sightlessly, wrapped in a robe someone had bustled her into. First she waited for Andrei, then for Anatole, and now she waited for no one and nothing, only yearning for something nameless behind her ribs — absolution, perhaps. A chance to turn back the clock.

Outside the tree branches rustled; a sparrow landed when it steadied. The flicker of movement caught Natasha’s sluggish gaze and held it inexplicably. She fixed her eyes on it, watching as it flitted to and fro, to and fro. She lifted them when it took off into the air, tracing its arc through the sky with the stirrings of a longing she hadn't felt since that beautiful sleepless night. The moon and Sonya. Natasha’s heart yearning to take flight. To be above and beyond it all. The thought, once precious, now ached.  
  
“Count Bezukhov to see you, Countess.”  
  
Natasha startled. She glanced over her shoulder and there he stood, watching her carefully. His hat in his hands. Smile a little shy.  
  
"Natasha,” said Pierre, her name all warmth and wonder. "Forgive me. I know you are in no state to be receiving calls; if my company is disagreeable to you l shall take my leave and return on your word and yours alone. But if it is agreeable to you...I would like very much to stay and offer what comfort I can. If I can." His look turned sheepish. "I must confess that I can't imagine being of comfort to anyone."  
  
Natasha's eyes burned. Her throat swelled.  
  
Dear Pierre, she thought, and it was funny, how every time felt like the first, but there was no getting the words out from behind her teeth, not when Natasha was so arrested by the way Pierre was gazing upon her—so warm and so tender, as if Natasha had never been ruined.  
  
Slowly, she smiled, and Pierre reeled as if from a blow soundly struck.

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
  
“You needn't speak on my account." Pierre was seated in a chair near to hers, having scooted it over from its place by the couch, waving off the lingering footman even as Pierre visibly cringed at the sound of it scraping across the floor. It was the kind of social gaffe that he was so well known for—that would illicit titters in drawing rooms throughout Moscow—but Natasha watched Pierre bumble about and only felt a fondness that seemed inexhaustible. "When I'm in the grips of despair l lie about for days and can be roused by nothing and no one. I wouldn't dare presume the same of you, of course, but all this to say... We can sit and pass the afternoon like this, if you like."  
  
The kindness in his gaze was almost too much to bear. Natasha swallowed dryly, somehow not looking away. The afternoon was already late. Would he sit quietly with her until evening? She looked at Pierre, sad and stout, silly and splendid, and suddenly her ears were thirsty.  
  
"Can you speak?" Her voice was hoarse—she hadn't heard it outside her own head for days—but there was no room for self consciousness, not with the way Pierre's body lilted towards her at the sound, like his own ears were thirsty.  
  
"Yes, of course,” said Pierre, sitting back with a flush. “Often and at great length as you well know. But what would you have me speak of?"

“Anything." The words weren't what mattered though there was a certain magic to Pierre’s that had always captivated her. Pierre flushed again, looking startled but pleased, and Natasha felt a surge of tender protectiveness, wondering if anyone had ever said that to him before. 

"You may regret that," Pierre said, smiling crookedly, but Natasha had more regrets than she could count and didn't think she could ever regret anything about Pierre.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Pierre called, again and again, and it seemed to Natasha that the drawing room had become a world of their very own, one that held all the color she had thought lost for good. There was no burden of expectation, none of the anger or shame or disappointment. Just Pierre, all kind eyes and open face and perpetually smudged spectacles, the look of wonder that stole across his face on days when silence hurt more than the sound of her own voice and she opted to share her words rather than swallow them. It was a look Natasha was becoming addicted to and he wore it now, albeit with a tint of confusion.

“Blue?” Pierre said. “Truly?”

“And red,” Natasha said. There was a flush warming the back of her neck and she bent it to stare at the piano keys. Her hands laid flat against them, patiently waiting for music to spring from her fingertips. She swallowed and plucked out some chords, resolutely not looking at Pierre. A holdover from the times she had tried and failed to make people understand all that was within her.

Mama hadn't and it had bruised even as she laughed it all off. But this was Pierre. Pierre who listened, Pierre who made her feel safe, seen. It was a heady feeling and Natasha trembled from it some days. She trembled from it now. See me, Natasha thought, and it felt like a dare. It felt like a plea.I see you. Blue and red and wonderfully square, narrow in neither body, mind nor heart.

She thought: Prove me wrong.

She thought: Prove me right.

"What kind of blue?"

Her head jerked up. Pierre looked steadily back, eyes soft but intent, a smile curving his mouth under her awed stare. She swallowed again. "Dark. Rich and fine." Like one of Nikolai's coats or the sea on a stormy day. "I quite like it, you know," she added impulsively, buoyed by his gentle scrutiny, and thrilled at his huff of a laugh.  
  
"How fascinating," Pierre murmured, peering at her, and the tension in her shoulders eased. She sat up straighter, smiling. "Is it just words or names? Or anything else?"

Natasha beckoned him closer. He stared blankly and she beckoned him again, watching with amusement as he stood up hesitantly and moved to sit next to her on the bench. There was a creak as he settled and Pierre didn't succeed in hiding his wince. It was a tight fit but Natasha relished in the closeness, as improper as it was. "Now pick a key," she told him, smiling at him sidelong. "Any one will do."

Pierre hesitated upon positioning his fingers. His hands were very large on the keys and there was a familiar dryness in her mouth, throat. "I'm afraid I don't have your gift for music."

"That's all right," Natasha said. "You have too many good qualities as it is. You must leave some for the rest of us."

Pierre laughed then smiled her favorite smile, the one that seemed as if he was taken aback by his own delight. There was always such a hesitant happiness in his face and Natasha wanted it to make a home there, to crystallize into something less ephemeral and more long-lasting. Not for the first time she yearned to tell him that he deserved goodness too. If happiness was truly her gift she would share it with him, always, because no one deserved it more than this strange, sad man. "You must be thinking of yourself," he said, playing an e flat to curtail her response, and it rang out sharply, suspended in the air for one breath, two.  
  
"Blue," Natasha said. "Sometimes grey."  
  
"My blue?"  
  
"No." Her smile was audible. "Lighter."  
  
And so it went. On and on and on, Pierre looking at her with burgeoning wonder. Natasha felt a little like a glass too full, not a disgrace but someone beautiful, mystifying, worthy of love and forgiveness. Perhaps the world had been inside of her all along, she thought. Not Andrei, not Anatole, not even Pierre. Natasha smiled at him, holding the thought close. Pierre smiled back. "Amazing,” he said. His eyes were so bright. “I could search the world and still never find anyone quite like you.”  
  
"Or you," said Natasha, wanting to touch his mouth or bearded cheek. She settled for touching a finger to the back of his hand, still splayed over the ebony and ivory keys. Pierre jerked, his pulse jumping to his throat. "But why search? I'm here. You're here too."  
  
He looked at her, eyes wide behind his spectacles, before he ducked his head, smiling. “So we are.”

Sunlight in their eyes and hair, heart in her throat. Hadn't all the brightness of the world seemed lost? But then a shining, golden afternoon, rendered all the more beautiful in its impossibility. The future loomed uncertain but even if it was this one single moment Natasha's eyes were open, clear. Ready to accept any goodness that came her way.

**Author's Note:**

> if you think I listened to pierre & natasha 4366899 times over the course of the 5 or so months it took to write this you would be correct. 
> 
> so yeah!!! this is a weird amalgam of the musical/book while skewing more to the mini series timeline because tolstoy is my enemy and gave me much less to work with in that regard. consider this my love letter to one of the most beautiful characters ever my girl natasha and also natasha/pierre. lot little book references, including an entire section based around natasha's synesthesia. thanks tolstoy for having her canonically describe how she perceives pierre.
> 
> i still wanna fight because they never kiss in the damn book but whatever!!! the mini series delivered there


End file.
